Abstract
Statistical mimicking issues involving reaction time measures are introduced and discussed in this article. Often, discussions of mimicking have concerned the question of the serial versus parallel processing of inputs to the cognitive system. We will demonstrate that there are several alternative structures that mimic various existing models in the literature. In particular, single-process models have been neglected in this area. When parameter variability is incorporated into single-process models, resulting in discrete or continuous mixtures of reaction time distributions, the observed reaction time distribution alone is no longer as useful in allowing inferences to be made about the architecture of the process that produced it. Many of the issues are raised explicitly in examination of four different case studies of mimicking. Rather than casting a shadow over the use of quantitative methods in testing models of cognitive processes, these examples emphasize the importance of examining reaction time data armed with the tools of quantitative analysis, the importance of collecting data from the context of specific process models, and the importance of expanding the database to include other dependent measures.
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This project was supported by NIMH Grants HD MH44640 and MH00871 to R.R. and was completed while the first author was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. The manuscript was greatly improved by helpful comments from Barbara Dosher, Ehtibar Dzhafarov, Thomas Fikes, Rich Schweickert, Saul Sternberg, and Jim Townsend.
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Van Zandt, T., Ratcliff, R. Statistical mimicking of reaction time data: Single-process models, parameter variability, and mixtures. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 2, 20–54 (1995). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214411
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214411